in the end

the smell of longing reminded her that she is

powerful

in her vulnerable.

he asks her “why do your shirt sleeves say delicate?”, the dubious question more in his voice and his look than in the question itself.

“delicate doesn’t necessarily mean weak or feeble”

costar tells her that her heart is delicate, but that does not mean it needs to be fortified. she agrees.

she protects herself dresses herself in vulnerability. slipping on a pair of denim direct and honest conversations and buttoning up a knit show of emotional investment. wrapping up in a thick long overcoat of visible tears for good measure. she bares her heart quietly basking in its robust emotional beat asking you to please do the same.

i feel weak her heart cries to her i am exposed and everyone can see me and what if…

they don’t love me back?

she sighs a breath of bitter blooms and sweet dreams. then speaks

you have so much love, so much that i don’t know what to do with it all. it’s long overflown our attempts at containment -- spilling over the engraved tea cup you used each morning for jasmine, the cute pitcher you squeezed acidic lemons into, the slippery ceramic bathtub, the blue-tiled multi-lane swimming pool, and all of the beautiful oceans we know.

you love widely, but even more so deeply, and you’re right, not everyone will love you back with such intensity or depth or even at all. some people will love you and then change their hearts. others will love you but in a time or moment that was not meant for that love. you will cry tears that only add to and accumulate in the salt-ridden waters, and your pain may make you love them even more sometimes.

but wouldn’t you rather love with all of you than half-heartedly?

our lives are both short and long at the exact same time, but no matter which way you look at it, it’s never enough.

so make it enough. you aren’t weak in exposure, you are strong in visibility. let everyone else also bask in the fluorescence of your vibrant scintillating flashbulb heart beat that says i am here i am present i love you. the real tragedy is not the rejection of confessions of love, but the confessions that are not. the love that will never be known if we believe that delicate and vulnerable mean weak and feeble.

as she speaks to her heart, she listens hard. remembering her own confessions of vulnerability.

and even though it couldn’t be, she knew. in the end it was always there.